I am impressed by the simple, idealized models based on physical pictures that science often presents to explain much of the universe – models that demonstrate hypotheses about such things as particle physics and multi-dimensional space to name a few. I was first inspired by scientific models while a graduate student in the 1980’s when Cosmos aired on PBS.

Hence, I use science as a factual beginning for making a painting in the same way that a landscape painter might use the landscape as a factual beginning. The focus of my current work uses abstract forms to explore and map ephemeral relationships within larger systems of interacting phenomena or energy in states of growth or becoming. Some of the patterns found in my work are drawn from botanic forms and physical effects of tiny processes in, for example, burning wood, melting ice, soap bubbles, swarming insects, or vortices formed by moving air & water. I find the inherent qualities of these forms worth investigating as they contain both abstract and real physical characteristics. I am fascinated by the way in which the properties of oil and mediums and the very act of making itself transform and reinvent my source material. The paint is laid on the surface to produce intricate, translucent matrices of lines and shapes that undulate in ambiguous space.

Although I don’t work in series or produce variations on a single theme, every painting begins with an image from reality. I consider a spectrum of referencing modes that begin with questions or arguments. What are the roles of seeing relationships, accidents, morphologies, comparisons, systems? How do I communicate what I see- in metaphors? Allusions? Parables? Structures? Using the essential elements of abstraction; color, line, surface and form, the paintings move freely in and out of degrees of abstraction. On one level I am making snapshots of structures and relationships in flux – portraits of a process. Or perhaps they’re arrivals carrying with them evidence of circuitous paths that led to their current destination. Having said this, a question will remain for the viewer, what exactly are we looking at? Variations of a single entity undergoing metamorphosis? Biological? Chemical? Psychological? Astronomical? Metaphorical ambiguities and multiple associations about subject identity and scale are welcomed.